


keep your promises

by writing_way_too_much



Series: better things fall together [1]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life, the world ends but not in a way that kills people ya feel?, this fic came out of nowhere wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 10:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14282667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_way_too_much/pseuds/writing_way_too_much
Summary: a promise. a reminder. hope. // younghyun left two years seven months one week three days ago.





	keep your promises

**Author's Note:**

> two fics in two days who am i
> 
> i've decided to strategically go through all of my rough drafts in google drive and complete them, so i will hopefully be posting more than one fic every couple months like i have been. (i have a lot of rough drafts.)
> 
> disclaimer: this is completely fictitious. i own only the plot.

“hyung, what’s that?”

dowoon points to the small heart drawn on sungjin’s wrist in black sharpie.

sungjin smiles sadly. “a promise. a reminder. hope.”

dowoon rolls his eyes. “could you be any vaguer, hyung?”

“it’s sharpie,” sungjin says. dowoon hits his shoulder, laughing. 

“never would have guessed. but seriously, what is it?”  
  
  
  


 

sungjin’s had a heart drawn in sharpie on his wrist for years now.

his mother, if she knew, would probably give him one of her patented disappointed mom glares and then smack his forehead. it isn’t very good for your skin to constantly have permanent marker drawn on it. the skin of sungjin’s left wrist is a little discolored now, a little more easily irritated. he doesn’t care.

if anyone asks him about the heart, he tells them it’s a promise, tells them it’s a reminder, tells them it’s hope. he’s telling the truth, albeit a shortened version of it.

_ “i will make it back to you,” younghyun vowed, hands clutching the hem of sungjin’s shirt.  _

_ sungjin swallowed back tears. “i know. i love you.” _

_ “and i love you.” younghyun cast his gaze around the room, searching for something. his eyes lit up when he saw the thin sharpie sungjin always kept on his desk. _

_ “here,” he said, struggling a little with the cap. sungjin’s heart felt like it was breaking and expanding at the same time. younghyun took sungjin’s wrist in his hand, drew a simple small heart on sungjin’s wrist. he held the cap between his teeth in the way sungjin always told him not to. “redraw this when it fades. i love you. remember it. i promise i will make it back to you. when you look at it, feel hope.” _

_ a tear, unbidden, slipped out of sungjin’s eye. younghyun wiped it away with the pad of his thumb. _

_ “it’s only fair that i should give you something too,” sungjin said. he paused for a moment, then drew a star. “redraw it--redraw it when it fades.” the corner of younghyun’s mouth quirks up as sungjin repeats his words. “i love you. remember it. i promise i will be waiting for you. when you look at it, feel hope.” _  
  
  
  


 

younghyun left two years seven months one week three days ago.

  
  
  
  


there aren’t phones. there isn’t enough of a functional government anywhere for there to be postal service. it had only just started getting bad, cell networks beginning to cut out, when younghyun’s family stole him away and fled to canada, thinking it would be safer than south korea.

now, the entire world’s gone to shit, but sungjin still has food, still has water, still has his mother, still has dowoon.

the only thing he’s missing is the biggest of all.

  
  
  
  
  


sungjin reads a lot, to pass the time.

dowoon works with sungjin’s mother in the garden or at the market. his family straight-up abandoned him when everything started falling apart, and sungjin had always been protective of him, so he convinced his mother to take him in. it wasn’t very hard.

maybe if younghyun were still here, he’d play his guitar, but he hasn’t touched it in two years seven months one week five days. he isn’t sure if his fingers will even remember how chords work, and it’s not as if the internet exists anymore for him to just look it up. maybe if younghyun were still here, he’d write songs and sing harmonies with him, but he hasn’t sung a single note in two years seven months one week five days.

he gets a familiar pull in his chest whenever dowoon plays his drums, the ache of music, and firmly tells it to go away.

the people in the area he and his mother live in were actually quite nice when the world fell apart. at least in this area of countryside, they have a sewer system and community gardens and trade coming in from all over the continent.

sungjin buys books from the merchants with the money he had once saved for college. he reads too many love stories and dowoon has to curl around him at night to get him to sleep. he reads nonfiction, learns about the plants that will kill you, warns his mother not to go near them. he reads history books and translated poetry and newspaper articles from right when the downhill slope of the end of the world steepened into a vertical cliff.

words are his escape where music once was.

  
  
  
  


sungjin hopes younghyun hasn’t forgotten about him.

  
  
  
  


just before postal service went down, sungjin received his last correspondence from younghyun: a massive package of sharpies, all thin and black. it was two months after younghyun left. enclosed on top was a polaroid of a wrist with a star drawn on it, a little shakier than sungjin’s original one.

that picture is pinned up strategically in sungjin’s room, where the sun won’t fade it and his mother won’t see it. she’d ask too many questions.  
  
  
  
  
  


they were in their last year of high school when the governments of the world finally told the public what was going on.

sungjin remembers those last days before they knew, blissful ignorance. everything seemed a little stressed, but he forgot about it when he was with younghyun. when he was kissing him. when he was holding his hand. when their voices were harmonizing together. when they said they loved each other under a twilight sky. when they barely made curfew most nights, having been out wandering the streets, eating unhealthy food and laughing.

then, well--

you know the rest.

  
  
  
  
  


“hyung, have you eaten today?”

sungjin looks up blearily. he’d read a book on electricity and wired something together to watch some of his grandmother’s old vhs tapes. it had kept him up all night, trying to get the ancient television to flicker to life, and the blue glow had seemed foreign due to all the time he’d spent without it.

he’s been watching all the tapes he can find, documentaries, homemade videos, old movies, and it’s definitely taken his mind off of younghyun, but now he remembers.

“no, dowoonie,” sungjin responds, feeling a little guilty. dowoon is the person he loves third most in the world, and he hates hurting him. “i was watching these.”

he holds up the basket of tapes.

dowoon’s eyes widen. “i haven’t seen technology in so long,” he murmurs.

sungjin pats the carpet next to him. “wanna watch some with me?”

“eat first. then i’m sure mom would like to join too.”

dowoon freezes at the slip, and sungjin smiles at him, his big, full, eye-crinkling smile that he thinks may not have appeared on his face since younghyun left (two years seven months two weeks two days). “it’s okay, dowoonie. i’m sure she thinks of you as her second son.”

he’s rewarded with dowoon’s brightest blush, and he laughs, rubbing the top of dowoon’s head affectionately. “c’mon. i bet mom has some soup or something that she’ll practically pour down my throat.”

  
  
  
  


“a boat?”

“a boat,” sungjin’s mother confirms, shaking her head, the same disbelief sungjin feels written on her face. “still probably a decent couple of days from reaching the shore, but yes. a single-person sailboat, but a boat.”

sungjin feels a flare of hope that he hasn’t for a while (two years seven months three weeks one day). he wants so desperately for younghyun to be on that goddamn boat that he spends the next several hours convincing himself it won’t be.

dowoon finds him just before they blow out the lights. sungjin isn’t hiding, per se, but he isn’t exactly making himself available to human interaction either.

“this has something to do with the heart on your wrist, doesn’t it?” dowoon asks quietly. “and that polaroid with the star?”

“yes,” sungjin whispers, staring up at the night sky.

he’s lying on the roof, shivering a little in the wind, trying to count the stars he can see to attempt to distract himself from thinking about younghyun.

“there was--is--was a boy,” sungjin starts. he can’t go on.

“what about that boy, hyung?”

“i love him,” sungjin gasps out. “i love him and he loves--loved--loves me. he left two years seven months three weeks one day ago and he drew a heart on my wrist in sharpie as a promise and i drew a star on his and he said he’d make it back to me, he  _ promised _ \--”

“he will, hyung.” sungjin wishes he could have dowoon’s confidence. “anyone who loves you wouldn’t risk losing even a tiny slimmer of a chance.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


sungjin, against his better judgement, joins the ever-growing crowd waiting at the shore.

when the boat gets close enough that he can make out two human figures on it, he almost throws up, turning his back to the sea. there are two, so maybe--maybe--maybe younghyun found a sailor, but maybe he didn’t.

“sungjin!”

and, and, and--

it is.

  
  
  
  


“how did you get here?”

junhyeok, the sailor that younghyun fell back into sungjin’s life with, has a crooked smile and smells of salt. “i learned how to sail without technology from my father, who basically raised me on a boat. turned out to be quite handy when the world ended. i make quite a lot of money transporting people and light cargo around the world.”

“i’d heard of him,” younghyun says, still crying a little. sungjin wipes away the tears with the pad of his thumb. “when we’d been in canada for a couple months, and then the postal services went down, word got out about this im junhyeok who’d deliver your mail, albeit slowly, for you. i wanted to send you a letter, but to do that i had to tell my parents, since they’d basically put me on house arrest, and well…”

younghyun’s parents had always been homophobic.

“but you’re here,” sungjin says, still stunned.

“took like seven months, but yep,” younghyun says.

god, he’s beautiful.

“this is my adopted younger brother, dowoon,” sungjin introduces, “and of course you’ve already met my mom.”

“it’s lovely to see you again, dear,” she says, smiling widely at younghyun, which sets him off crying more. sungjin wraps his arms more firmly around younghyun (he hasn’t let go since he was close enough to touch) and lets his tears soak into his hoodie, an old one, from high school. he’s amazed he hasn’t broken down yet.

later, when they’re alone, after younghyun has bathed and eaten and junhyeok is entertaining a wide-eyed dowoon and an enthralled mrs. park with stories from around the globe, sungjin shows younghyun his wrist.

“you kept it?”

“of course i did. what about yours?”

sungjin is almost afraid as younghyun pulls his sleeve back, but there’s the star, dark black against younghyun’s tanned skin. “how could i ever forget? i had a promise to keep.”

“took you long enough,” sungjin says, without any resentment. he still hasn’t stopped let go of younghyun.

“how long did you say?”

“two years seven months three weeks four days,” sungjin whispers.

“start a new countdown,” younghyun says softly. “one where we’re together.”

his chest physically aches with the strongest emotion he’s ever felt when younghyun finally kisses him.

  
  
  
  
  


“oh, it’s a market day,” sungjin says.

younghyun yawns and rolls over, accidentally tangling his bare legs in the sheets. he’s blinky and sleepy and adorable. sungjin loves him to pieces. “it’s a what now?”

from his vantage point at the window of his room, sungjin can see down onto the sort of main street that has formed in the time since the world ended. people are putting up tent poles and setting out goods on tables. a few merchants have clearly been here since before dawn, their stands the most impressive and alluring.

“every week or so, there’s a market day,” sungjin explains, turning back to younghyun, who makes grabby hands at him. he slips back into bed willingly. “the merchants only come through every couple months, but they’ll sell and trade and have all sorts of fantastic stories to tell. when they’re not here, the market is basically just everyone in the surrounding area who can walk here within half an hour carrying things to sell. it’s pretty fun.”

it’s even more fun with younghyun at his side, taking free samples from all of the nice old ladies who are charmed by younghyun’s smile and seeing the looks of awe on younghyun’s face when the merchants talk about the communities that have sprung up in the most unlikely of places.

sungjin finds himself wishing for the first time since technology stopped working that he could at least have a camera, to take a thousand pictures of younghyun.

  
  
  
  


a clap of thunder wakes sungjin up.

younghyun whimpers next to him. he’s sitting bolt upright, eyes wide in the darkness, and sungjin feels his heart constrict. “what is it, sweetheart?”

“junhyeok and i almost died in a thunderstorm crossing the pacific,” younghyun says. a tiny cry of fear squeaks past his lips when lighting flashes white-hot outside the window. “they’re--i’m--”

sungjin kisses younghyun when the thunder claps again, swallowing the yelp that escapes, and he’s fairly certain that younghyun forgets about the storm for a decent amount of time after that.

the storm has softened to a steady drizzle when younghyun falls back asleep, head pillowed on sungjin’s chest, and sungjin wants this to be his forever.

  
  
  
  


“your guitar looks dusty,” younghyun remarks.

“haven’t touched it since you left,” sungjin admits guiltily.

younghyun considers this for a moment, then grins, and sungjin falls for him all over again. “hope you still know how to play, hyung.”

they sing duets late into the night.

(the next morning, his mother pretends to be annoyed at the disturbance to her sleep, but she and dowoon, upon hearing the first note from the guitar, ungodly out of tune, had sat with their backs to sungjin’s closed bedroom door and listened while the candle burned down low.)

  
  
  
  
  


one month one week six days since the love of his life came back.

  
  
  
  
  


“i kept my promise, didn’t i?” younghyun murmurs into sungjin’s ear.

it’s a crisp fall evening, teetering on the brink of winter. the community is having a feast to celebrate a successful harvest. sungjin and younghyun did a short performance, a song younghyun wrote while at sea that sungjin helped perfect. it was called “i wait” and sungjin cried the first time younghyun sang it to him.

the outdoor shelter where the entire community is gathered is alight with contained fires and the warm glow of happiness. sungjin can see dowoon shyly asking a boy he doesn’t recognize to dance with him, and his mother is laughing with her friends. the world fell apart but sungjin thinks that this corner came back together alright.

“i knew you would,” he says simply, and younghyun smiles, kisses him, and they head out to dance.

**Author's Note:**

> apparently jae and wonpil don't exist here just imagine them being happy and gay somewhere else in this universe
> 
> i actually really like this au so if you guys want a sequel or a jaepil spinoff or the whole thing from younghyun's perspective or whatever, let me know! no promises on when it'll get written but i do like the universe i've created sooooo
> 
> hmu on tumblr @bestfluteninja (especially if you're confused at all about the au, i will be more than happy to answer ur questions)
> 
> please leave kudos or a comment if you enjoyed, they make me smile <3 much love, thank you for reading


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